Sanguinity ([info]sanguinity) wrote in [info]debunkingwhite,
2008-04-21 14:22:00
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Europeans = Native Americans??

This pisses me off. A lot.

It doesn't particularly help that it's coming out of Europe, with that added zing! that comes from Europeans taking all the nasty subtexts that appear in mainstream American images of Natives, and then jacking those subtexts straight up to text. But even besides that--

The gall.

Europeans do not get to claim the oppression of Native North Americans as their own. They really, really don't. I know that mainstream North America loves to treat Indians as some sort of public domain cultural myth, on an equal level with fairies and Cinderella... --but it doesn't work that way. Indians are actual people. Not a free-floating idea in the public domain, whereby anyone can pretend to be Indian for the day.

And to follow that further: Europeans had an actual role in the Conquest. Europeans don't get to just self-identify with whatever side they think is glamorous or useful today.

Which brings me to my next point: the appropriation of oppression is nasty enough, but this instance is unbelievably offensive. You ESPECIALLY do not get to appropriate the racist oppression of others in order to further your own racist, oppressive agendas.

So. Seriously. Do. NOT.


It just breaks my brain how many slimy and outright false things you have to believe for these posters make an emotionally compelling argument. Breaks. My. Brain.

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  • 19 comments

[info]ultimateairn

April 21 2008, 21:45:11 UTC 4 years ago

America:





Using Native Americans as propaganda tools since (at least) 1971!

[info]cybergothdiva

April 21 2008, 21:52:46 UTC 4 years ago

OUTRAGEOUS

[info]hortensio

April 21 2008, 21:55:53 UTC 4 years ago

OMG HAHAHAHAHA. That's... wow, that's something.

And to follow that further: Europeans had an actual role in the Conquest.

Oh. Hm. That's putting it somewhat mildly, no? Rain, it has an actual dampness.

Anyway, I'm going to argue that they're not appropriating the oppression of the Native Americans; they're doing something that is actually even more sinister. The Native Americans aren't being used here as anything besides a passive depiction of the inverse -- the aggressive colonisers. The message is identification of immigrants to Europe with the kind of aggressive, all-conquering 'immigration' of European colonisers of America. It could have been anything else besides a caricatured chief, seriously -- an animal whose habitat has been ruined, for example. Same message.

That's kind of the thing -- right-wing European parties are sure as hell not asking you to identify with the Native Americans. They're a total non-entity to them. The point is the aggression of the other lot. Further: most of Europe has gotten its ass invaded by someone at some point; and most of these right-wing parties basically count on their constituencies already supplying their very own special tales of the resulting victimhood -- so all this poster does is facilitate this leap.

Seriously, this poster completely erases the Native North Americans from itself, even though it's depicting "them". It's fascinating that that can even happen, but I think it has.

[info]hortensio

April 21 2008, 21:58:49 UTC 4 years ago

* uh.

That last part was in response to:
    It just breaks my brain how many slimy and outright false things you have to believe for these posters make an emotionally compelling argument.
You don't actually have to believe those things -- the emotion isn't supposed to be provoked by identification with the Native Americans at all.

[info]sanguinity

April 22 2008, 01:38:36 UTC 4 years ago

:: That's putting it somewhat mildly, no? Rain, it has an actual dampness. ::

Yeah, I got tangled up in trying to figure out exactly to what extent contemporary Italians could get away with saying, "But that wasn't us," and in the process, I got my vocabulary crossed. What I meant to say was something closer to, "There's no part of Western Europe that gets to claim that the Conquest had nothing to with them."

[info]hortensio

April 22 2008, 16:54:50 UTC 4 years ago

I know, I know. :-) The line just sounded hilariously diplomatic.

[info]vivianstcloud

April 22 2008, 15:46:47 UTC 4 years ago

Rain, it has an actual dampness.

LOL!

[info]in_da_lifeworld

April 21 2008, 21:56:33 UTC 4 years ago

the lega nord, as a fringe party included in the governing coalition, gets to be a mouthpiece for stuff anti-immigration berlusconi supporters think, but don't want to directly admit to.

[info]hortensio

April 21 2008, 21:59:27 UTC 4 years ago

Why the ass is Berlusconi back in the picture anyway?

[info]in_da_lifeworld

April 21 2008, 23:20:53 UTC 4 years ago

as usual in italian politics, i blame the ascendant centre

[info]hry2007

April 22 2008, 00:23:19 UTC 4 years ago

[info]hry2007

April 22 2008, 00:27:51 UTC 4 years ago

To add to that, this is just... words fail me. I'm just so damn tired of bigots getting indignant about preserving the majority cultural, whatever that may be, when said culture was made by stealing from the people trying to immigrate now and get a small slice of the pie.

[info]alias_sqbr

April 22 2008, 00:56:28 UTC 4 years ago

Wow, that is eleven shades of crazy bad.

I realise this is somewhat off topic, but weren't italian immigrants one of the groups (white) americans got all paranoid and predjudiced against? And so it goes round...

[info]nancylebov

April 22 2008, 12:53:47 UTC 4 years ago

Yes. And anti-Italian prejudice was still very active within recent decades. One of my friends got burnt by it.

[info]lovmelovmycats

April 22 2008, 03:35:36 UTC 4 years ago

"They suffered immigration"
NO! American Indians suffered conquest and genocide. Great chasms of difference between immigration and invasion.

[info]jestingrabbit

April 22 2008, 05:18:09 UTC 4 years ago

That's a northern league poster. The northern league is to italy as the BNP is to britain. Expecting better from them would be crazy.

[info]annwfyn

April 22 2008, 16:53:37 UTC 4 years ago

To be fair, it is the Lega Nord. That poster is such a long way from the worst or most obnoxious thing they have ever said. Their leader refers to African immigrants as 'bingo bongos' and another of their senior bods made a speech in which he claimed Italy beat France at football because the French team had more immigrants on it. I think another of their members suggested just lining immigrants up against a wall and shooting them.

They are racist scumbags. Everyone knows it. They appeal to exactly the same demographic that support the BNP in the UK. They in no way represent mainstream Italian politics or views, and in some ways I kinda don't expect anything more from them. I don't get upset with the Lega Nord for being racist any more than I get upset with toxic waste for smelling vile and leaving a nasty trail where it goes.

[info]jestingrabbit

April 23 2008, 07:41:29 UTC 4 years ago

Thanks for explaining this better than I did.

[info]delux_vivens

April 22 2008, 23:07:19 UTC 4 years ago

And to follow that further: Europeans had an actual role in the Conquest.

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